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I love it! "I found some smelly corroded metal objects, so I must investigate their electrical properties." Serendipitous science at its best! Or, how to incre

I love it! "I found some smelly corroded metal objects, so I must investigate their electrical properties." Serendipitous science at its best! Or, how to increase your luck surface area.

alexbock 11y ago
Cat's whisker diodes and the initial discovery of the LED are other good examples of this. Connect a small wire to the right kind of rock (or rusty old razor blade) just right and you get a diode. If you get it just perfect (and use the right kind of rock) you'll even get a faint LED.
- Stratoscope 11y ago
  Indeed! That brought back a vivid childhood memory of moving the cat's whisker around on a crystal to find just the right spot to pick up the local radio station. It was mind-blowing to realize that the acoustic waves vibrating my eardrums were directly powered by the radio waves transmitted from the broadcast antenna.
- GregBuchholz 11y ago
  For those who want to experiment with their own LEDs, they should check out: https://web.archive.org/web/20120913060200/http://neazoi.com/homemadeled/index.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20120913060200/http://neazoi.com...
  - simcop2387 11y ago
    This is also a neat place to start with making your own OLEDs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAgRF8TibJ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAgRF8TibJ0
aswanson 11y ago
Beautiful. We need more serendipitous moments like this. Like the 19th century experimentalists you read about as a kid.